Bodyguard

by William C. Dietz

  The second was missing. A more imaginative person than myself might have spent a significant amount of time considering what might have happened if the first tent had been destroyed, but I felt no desire to do that. No, it was much nicer to cycle through the lock with the warning buzzer sounding in my ears, strip off my suit, and seek the solace of a small but well-designed inflatable rest room.

  It was only after I had taken a much delayed pee that I remembered Loni and the fact that I discarded her along with my suit. I hurried back. The shelter had been designed to accommodate twice our number, so there was plenty of room. I wound my way between people, unoccupied suits, and built-in equipment to find that a pair of mules were disconnecting Loni from my suit. I put on one of my most intimidating frowns. “Hey…what’s going on?”

  The man had his face plate open. He looked in my direction, then looked again. “Dawkins told us to collect six borgs and connect them to the walkers.”

  I nodded my understanding. “Great…but let me say goodbye.”

  The man looked unhappy but decided to go along. “Okay…but make it snappy.”

  Loni’s umbilical was still connected to my suit. I left her on the floor, lifted the suit, and draped it across my back. The helmet felt natural after wearing it for so long. “Loni?”

  “Well, if it isn’t my own personal chauffeur. You disappeared.”

  “Sorry. I had to pee. But I hurried back.”

  “All is forgiven. Thanks for the ride. Try to get assigned to my walker, so I can return the favor.”

  “Will do. Wish we could talk some more, but they’re waiting to take you away.”

  “No problem. If I had lips I’d kiss you.”

  “Traddlemop.”

  Then they took her away. I didn’t know what the others thought about the tears that trickled down my cheeks and didn’t really give a shit.

  Things went relatively well after that. It took about twelve hours to grab some sleep, refill our oxygen tanks from the shuttle’s supply, and bury the pilots. The sun had just started to peek over the horizon when we started the service. The walkers were equipped with a variety of attachments, and what would have taken us hours they accomplished in a matter of minutes. The graves were laser-straight and perfectly aligned.

  It was a strange funeral. The sun rose higher in the sky and sent long black fingers down across the plain. Eleven space-suited mourners sang “Amazing Grace” while five four-story-tall machines stood at attention. The sixth walker, the one controlled by Loni, served as the only pallbearer, lowering the space-suited pilots into their neatly excavated graves with slow, deliberate movements of her long, spindly arms.

  Dawkins called for a moment of silence, and I wondered if anyone else was struck by the fact that not a single one of us had known the pilots, or what kind of people they’d been. And what, I wondered, was the difference between the cyborgs, who lived on after the death of everything but their brain tissue, and the pilots, who were gone wherever dead people go? Was that what we were? Chunks of brain tissue? And if so, what about me? Seeing as I had lost a goodly amount of mine, did that make me less of a person? My head started to hurt, and I let the questions drift.

  And so it was that a few cubic yards of rocky red soil was pushed in on top of the pilots and carefully welded metal crosses were erected at the heads of their graves. They looked kind of lonely as we turned our backs on them and boarded the walkers. And I did manage to ride in Loni’s machine, not that it made much difference, since the inside of one cargo space is pretty much like another.

  The good news was that it took the walkers less than two hours to traverse the ground we had covered in six. The bad news was that the ride consisted of an unending series of jolts, each one of which threatened to drop my stomach through the bottom of my feet, or lift it up through the top of my head.

  But all things come to an end, even bad things, and the ride was no exception. Unfortunately, however, the end of one bad thing can signal the start of another, and such was the case.

  I know that the walkers intercepted the huge machine-city called Roller Three, and were admitted via one of the hatchways provided for that purpose, but didn’t actually witness what took place. For what seemed like obvious reasons, the cargo hold was not equipped with niceties like vid screens, and Loni was far too busy to provide a blow-by-blow description. So the first thing we saw was a pressurized vehicle bay, some tool-toting technoids, and the troops sent to pick me up. It took them about ten seconds to spot me, separate me from the rest of the group, and order me out of my suit.

  The guards wore red berets with Marcorps Special Forces badges on them and were very, very good. I could commit guard-assisted suicide and nothing more. The smaller of the two, a woman with corporal’s stripes, handed her weapon to a steroidal sidekick and moved to pat me down. Assuming I could take her, which was a lot of assuming, Frankenstein would put a dart through my heart. Not an especially attractive option.

  The corporal finished her search, took two steps back, and allowed Frankenstein to slap the gun into her outstretched hand. It had the look and feel of a well-rehearsed drill. The weapon seemed to leap into the cutaway holster and snap itself in.

  “Okay, Maxon. Head for door number two.”

  I looked. Door number two had a big numeral “2” painted on it so idiots like me could see it. I noticed there were no threats, no promises, just “head for door number two.” The woman scared the hell out of me. I shuffled towards door number two. The greenie with the piercing blue eyes yelled something, but I wasn’t sure what.

  I was pretty good at slip-slide walking by now and managed to stay in contact with the oil-stained deck. It vibrated as Roller Three advanced over another half-inch of Martian soil. We passed through door number two and entered a hall that was wide enough to accommodate the machinery used to build it. Airtight doors lined both sides of the corridor and were closed against the possibility of a blowout. Each bore an electro-sign. Eventually, after a trip up multiple flights of stairs, and down what seemed like miles of heavily traveled corridors, legends like “Machine Shop” and “Cybernetics” gave way to more administrative titles like “Logistics” and “Records.” The corporal ordered me to stop in front of a sign that read “Executive Offices.”

  Frankenstein frowned, punched a code into the keypad located by the door, answered a question over the intercom, and stood aside as the door opened. The corporal gestured for me to enter, and I obeyed. I saw a receptionist backed by an entire compartment full of freelance number-crunchers. Most were wired to their computers and didn’t bother to look up as we entered. The receptionist was a scrawny little guy with an artificial arm. It whirred as he jerked his bionic thumb towards the other end of the room. “Park him in the conference room.”

  The corporal was not one to waste words. She motioned with her head. “Move.”

  I moved.

  A weary-looking zombie sat chained to a console. A jumper cable connected his brain to a mini-comp. He followed our progress with dull, uninterested eyes. No one else even glanced in our direction.

  It made me wonder if prisoners were so common that their comings and goings were regarded as normal, or were these men and women so dedicated to the Marscorp bottom line they cared for nothing else? Both possibilities were equally depressing.

  The conference room door had been decorated with fake wood grain. It had peeled along the edges and I wanted to tear it off. The door slid out of the way and we stepped inside. I saw Sasha and felt my heart leap into my throat. She was alive! Tired, edgy, but alive!

  In spite of the formal nod, and the noncommittal expression, I saw relief in her eyes. It made me feel warm inside.

  The corporal gestured for me to take the chair next to Sasha, and I did. The room had no decorations to speak of and didn’t need any. A large picture window took care of that. A dust storm moved across the distant horizon. It drew the eye like the flames in an old-fashioned fireplace, filtering the landscape through a reddi
sh-brown haze, and shifting with the wind.

  The door swished, and I turned in that direction. A man had entered. Either Mother Nature or the biosculptors had been very good to him. He had a handsome face, ruddy complexion, and snow-white hair. His body was tall and athletically graceful. Energy crackled around him. He smiled and I smiled back. It was impossible not to.

  “Mr. Maxon! Ms. Casad! Thanks for coming.” The way he said it removed us from the category of prisoners and made us feel like honored guests.

  The man turned to the corporal and treated her to one of his high-voltage smiles. “Thanks, corporal. I’ll take it from here.” The corporal, trained killer that she was, smiled bashfully, said something incoherent, and pushed Frankenstein towards the door.

  The man leaned across the tabletop to shake hands. His grip was cold and limp. I let go as quickly as I could. He smiled. “Howard Norton, General Manager, at your service.”

  “Max Maxon. Glad to meet you.”

  He turned to Sasha and offered his hand. “Ms. Casad. Welcome to Mars. How’s your mother?”

  Sasha looked hopeful. “She was fine the last time I talked with her. You know my mother?”

  Norton nodded and sat down across from us. He leaned forward. A tidal wave of cologne rolled over me. “Yes, your mother and I worked on a project prior to the war. Different disciplines, of course, but she struck me as a competent scientist, and I was impressed by the quality of her ideas.”

  “Mom’s impressive, all right,” Sasha said evenly. “We are, or were, on our way to see her.”

  Norton nodded sympathetically. “Yes, I’m sorry about the ambush. Marscorp had nothing to do with it. While we are aware there are differences of opinion between Trans-Solar and the Protech Corporation, we have positive relationships with both companies, and would like to keep it that way. That’s why we put the surviving Trans-Solar people on a ship and sent them back to Earth.”

  “And the greenies?”

  Norton looked my way. The smile was predatory. “We have a labor shortage. The tree-huggers were convicted of assault and assigned to a variety of functions.”

  I nodded. “Such as hauling cyborgs across the surface of Mars.”

  Sasha raised an eyebrow but I chose to ignore it. Norton cleared his throat. “Yes, Marscorp would like to apologize for the unfortunate mix-up. Someone had the crazy idea that you were connected with the greenies. By the time my office learned of your whereabouts and sought to intervene, you had arrived at the crash site and were headed back. Safely, thank god.”

  I started to say something, started to object, but stopped when I saw Sasha frown. The signal was clear. Go along with the program and shut the hell up. I forced a smile. “Mistakes do happen.”

  “Exactly,” Norton said smoothly. “Thanks for your understanding. Although Marscorp does not wish to take sides, we will do everything we can to smooth the way, and remove barriers that might otherwise prove troublesome.”

  We must have looked relieved. Norton smiled. “You might be interested to know that no less than three different parties inquired about your health immediately after the ambush.”

  Sasha beat me to the punch. “Who were they?”

  Norton’s eyes were icy blue. They twinkled merrily. “A representative from Trans-Solar, a woman since identified as a greenie sympathizer, and Colonel Charles Wamba, Mishimuto Marines retired. He claimed to be a friend of Mr. Maxon’s.”

  The name had a familiar ring, but I couldn’t place it. The idea that I might have a friend seemed strange indeed. Sasha looked at me and I looked at her. We needed help, and the choice seemed obvious. Colonel Charles Wamba.

  11

  “If you take care of the city, it will take care of you.”

  One of countless morale holos set free to roam Roller Three’s corridors

  Your average corpie may be a money-sucking, power-crazed jerk, but they aren’t necessarily stupid, and Roller Three proved it. After all, why build cities near natural resources, only to have the resources play out? Forcing the very ground travel you sought to avoid? Especially on a planet where travel consumed time, money, and lives? No, a mobile city made a lot of sense.

  But, sensible though it may have been, Roller Three took some getting used to. It was on the lowest level referred to as “Deck One” where fusion-derived power fed gigantic drive wheels and steel blades funneled ore onto high-capacity conveyor belts.

  Deck two was home to the massive crushers, sorters, mixers, and furnaces, where humans and androids worked to convert ore to finished metal.

  Deck Three housed the multiplicity of machine shops, electronics labs, hydroponics equipment, and computer gear required to keep the whole complex running.

  Deck Four was split between living quarters, office space, recreational facilities, cafeterias, a communications center, hospital, and the ever-so-pleasant jail.

  And Deck Five, the topmost level, was given over to the landing strip, cranes, and other gear I had seen in the documentary. Or so our guide said, and I believed him.

  He was tall by normal standards and came all the way up to my shoulder. His name was Burns. He had carefully combed hair, expensive clothes, and the sort of eager-beaver attitude that bosses love. He was a glorified gofer but hoped to be a lifer some day and never stopped trying. That’s why Burns put all doubts aside and led two rather dubious VIP’s down into the bowels of the beast, where the eccentric Colonel Wamba had taken up residence.

  Conditions deteriorated as we journeyed downwards. Deck Three was first. I noticed the overhead was lower, the wood-grained plastic had given way to painted steel, and the temperature had risen. Tool heads conferred, androids hurried, and an atmosphere of frantic activity held sway. The feeling was reinforced by the chatter of power wrenches, the whine of lathes, the screech of saws, and the incessant smell of ozone. Burns mouthed words, but they were inaudible over the din.

  Steel shook as we descended a flight of circular stairs. We were halfway down when someone yelled “Gangway!” and a man in a pressure suit pushed past. “Move, god damn it…we’ve got a stretcher coming through!”

  I looked downwards and saw three men and a droid hoist a stretcher over their heads and start up the stairs. It wasn’t easy. The stretcher cradled what looked like a load of raw meat with a hole where its mouth should have been. Pieces of bone stuck out of the meat, along with rock fragments and chunks of pressure suit. Tubes ran every which way and kept the thing alive. Words popped out of my mouth. “What happened?”

  “The silly bastard dropped a wrench into the rock crusher and went in after it,” the man said grimly. “He won’t make that mistake again.”

  “But why?” I asked stupidly. “Wouldn’t it have been better to let it go?”

  The man shrugged. “Sure, except for the five grand the corpies would deduct from his pay.”

  “Five grand for a wrench?”

  The smile was bitter. “Wrenches are expensive on Mars.”

  I looked at the stretcher. It was closer now. “But why come this way? An elevator would be faster.”

  “It sure would,” the man agreed, “if they worked. The mining gear is repaired first. Lift tubes are towards the bottom of the list.”

  The stretcher party approached. The man motioned us to the rail. Bodies rubbed as the workers shuffled by.

  The man turned, spit against the wall, and looked me in the eye. “Watch your step.” He took the stairs two at a time.

  I turned to Burns. “He says the elevators are broken. Is that true?”

  Burns shrugged. “Sure, but so what? The exercise will do them good. Come on. Time’s a-wasting.”

  I started to reply but found myself addressing the back of his head. That was when Sasha caught my eye and frowned. The message was clear. “Don’t make waves.” I swallowed my anger and followed Burns downwards.

  If Deck Three was bad, Two was horrible. It was a short trip from the bottom of the stairs to the unisex locker room, where a heavily dented droid gave
me a bright yellow pressure suit size XXXL.

  Like most locker rooms, this one contained row after row of lockers and smelled like a jockstrap. A steady stream of workers entered. Their suits dripped water from the high-pressure spray room and left trails across the deck. Most stripped to their skivvies, checked their suits for wear, and headed for the showers. Others, more modest perhaps, got into their clothes and left. No one looked at us or said anything to us. The yellow suits marked us for what we were: tourists who, if not corpies themselves, were the next worst thing.

  I struggled with the final seal on my suit, traded safety checks with Sasha, and lumbered after Burns. The inside of my suit smelled better than I did. I had caught a little bit of sleep after our interview with Norton but hadn’t managed a shower.

  Steam drifted away from the spray room. We followed Burns through the vapor and into a parallel corridor. It was lined with safety slogans and multilayered graffiti. The passageway ended in front of a tractor-sized lock. Five humans, two androids, and a utility bot waited to enter. They looked, then turned away. Burns spoke in my ear. “Ms. Casad, Mr. Maxon, how’s it going?”

  The words were out before I could stop them. “If we assume normal dreeble, and gardunk aterbers, the resulting krepper would be 2678.33.”

  Burns was as mystified as I was. “What was that?”

  Sasha hurried to cover up. “We’re fine, thank you. What comes next?”

  As if to answer Sasha’s question, a beacon flashed and a buzzer sounded in my helmet. It took a full minute for the lock to iris open. Six filth-covered androids and two equally dirty humans stumbled out. Even the droids looked tired. They headed for a washdown while we entered the lock and watched the hatch close behind us. When it opened, it was into a hellish world of never-ending conveyor belts, huge sorters, massive crushers, gas-injected furnaces, and molten metal. All operating in what seemed like silence at the speeds made possible by computers and low-gravity refining techniques. It seemed as if the entire complex was on eternal fast forward.